By far this is the weirdest installment in the whole Spring Break in New Mexico series. So last night I drove up to Los Alamos--it's in the mountains you know, the place they dropped the first atomic bomb, and still a huge secret bomb research facility--to see Eric, who was doing a physics collabo over his Spring Break.
After dinner we went for a spin around the facilties. Eric showed me this sign that said "Explosive Trucks" with an arrow pointing up the hill. We thought this was so funny we got out to take a picture in front of it.
Well. It was dark and the flash didn't work. However we were spotted almost immediately by a security guard in a truck, who slowed down as he passed us. He pulled up as were getting back in my car. Uh-oh. Eric's flipping out. I'm trying to stay calm. Dude walks up & informs us that pictures are not allowed anywhere near the facilities & starts taking down our info. He comes back with my license after a while & says we will have to wait for his supervisor to come.
The supervisor dude arrives. By now there are a total of six security trucks parked at all angles surrounding my car. Supervisor dude is wearing fatigues & carries a metal box the size of a notebook (in which he will lock up & transport notes?). Eric's flipping out.
We explain how harmless & touristy we are. I even get out my camera to show him the only picture (pitch black of course), delete it at his request, revealing a picture of me with my Grandma.
He says yada yada about this just being the policy & hopefully he will not have to file a report. Eric's flipping out in the seat next to me. The dude lets us go, and then we have to drive around for about an hour to calm our nerves listening to some irreverent Burroughs. Every once in a while the conversation hits a lull and Eric looks out the window, says, "That sucks."
The old fear of authority & that mortified feeling you get when you're busted is all we can think about, though we try to talk about everything else. Six police cars surround you, they shine lights in your eyes, a man in fatigues walks up, and you're back in grade school ready to throw up or crap in your pants because you've been sent down to the principal's office. They sure know how to evoke that feeling. They've got it down to a science.
We go to a grocery store & get a six pack and six york peppermint patties. I realize we're acting like Joseph K in Kafka's Trial, who starts behaving like a convicted criminal just because they suspect he has committed a crime, though he knows perfectly well himself that he didn't. Almost, almost, it was as if we were feeling guilty for having such a strange sense of humor. Only to supervisor dude had we (reluctantly) admitted that we had just found the "Explosive Trucks" sign funny. Why did we hold back this detail, ashamed?
"I'm sorry boys, I just don't see what's so damn funny about that." Supervisor dude's mouth droops seriously at corners. "Would you please come back to the station and attempt to explain your abnormal sense of humor to us sat-is-fac-torily..." He draws this last word out. "We just want to make sure everyone's on the same page here."
Well back at the hotel the beer & peppermint patties calm us down & we talk of other things genuinely, Eric explains some physics, tells me a nasty but funny problem devised by a Russian physicist, conversation dissolves into saying stupid things like "I am a butt machine" in Chinese & it's practically one subconscious talking to another at the end when we fall asleep.
Explosive trucks. "The explosion will be of extraordinary magnitude."
Posted by Alan at March 21, 2004 02:32 AM